SGA: Government Denounces Fascism

Photo Courtesy of Connecticut College

It’s another Thursday night on campus. 25 elected student representatives, one student journalist (me), and one SGA sponsor and Associate Dean of Campus Life Geoff Norbert, gathered in Ernst Common Room in Blaustein Humanities Center at 7:15 pm on Feb. 15 for the weekly Student Government Association meeting. 

As always, the meeting began with a recitation of the Student Government Oath:

“We will never, by any selfish or other unworthy act, dishonor this our College; individually and collectively we will foster her ideals and do our utmost to instill a respect in those among us

who fail in their responsibility; unceasingly we will strive to quicken a general realization of our

common duty and obligation to our College. And thus in manifold service we will render our

Alma Mater greater, worthier, and more beautiful.”

In a perhaps broken but full-participatory attempt to chorally read the above oath, the meeting commenced and was brought to the first order of business: my presence—rather, the active presence of the press.

It was the ever-popular conversation of the balance between journalism ethics, standard field practices, and the concerns of elected officials being quoted, misquoted, poorly represented, and “sought out for repercussions” based on those quotes. On the more apprehensive side, members of SGA argued that the active presence of a journalist would restrict the candid and open conversation characteristic of typical SGA meetings. They were concerned that members would feel additional pressure and refrain from speaking freely. 

Others made the claim that SGA is a form of low-level governance, and it is not the role of politicians to limit the freedom of the press. When a House Senator suggested this column be approved by the assembly alongside the meeting minutes every week, Parliamentarian Timothy Friend ‘25 said, “It doesn’t really make sense for the government to be okay-ing what gets published, because that’s just a little fascist.” 

After a few more people shared their perspectives, generally falling within one of the two main ideas above, Blackstone House Senator Abdul Dare ‘27 provided the concluding remark: “We should just let the journalist here do her job, and we all here should just do our job.” This was met with round-the-room snaps and affirmative nods. And, with that resolute end to the discussion, SGA denounced fascism and permitted my presence—and TCV by extension (with the understanding that I—and future TCV reporters covering SGA meetings—will respect the phrase “Off the record…” to mean the speaker does not consent to the following statements being published as quotes or for the gist of the intention of the speaker and “On background…” to mean the speaker does not consent to be quoted but does consent to the gist of the information they share to be summarized). 

Moving on to the next order of business, Friend transitioned the conversation to a discussion of a topic from a previous meeting: course/faculty evaluations. Currently, course evaluations include space for students to evaluate their professors and occur exclusively at the end of the semester. Professors, of course, have the freedom to add in their own course evaluations, but without guidance or requirements to, most do not. In a presentation given to SGA members at a previous meeting, they were informed that end-of-semester evaluations have been found to contain biased responses that are harming the professors without actually adding benefit to student experiences in their course for that semester. Without the accountability that comes with having to interact with the professor again in the future, students have the space to provide critiques related to sexuality and race that hurt professors and do not provide them the opportunity to improve their actual educational work. Without access to specific data or responses, it was explained that all else assumed to be equal, professors with marginalized sexual and racial identities are receiving poorer evaluations, with some students potentially calling out the part of the professor’s identity they take discriminatory issue with. End-of-semester evaluations do not provide an avenue for course issues to be addressed during the duration of the course for the current students, only for future ones. 

Hence, the idea of mid-semester evaluations. In theory, mid-semester evaluations would provide the direct opportunity for issues to be addressed while they are still a problem. In response to concerns that some professors may react poorly to poor midterm evaluations, SGA members hope this proposal would be enacted in tandem with clearly presented chains of command for reporting professors, which students would be encouraged to take advantage of. This information would be readily accessible in the syllabus of every course, and all members of the chain of command would have its importance impressed upon them. These midterm evaluations would also hopefully address the biases currently seen in end-of-semester evaluations. This idea was proposed as an informal evaluation process to be personalized by professors themselves. It is not a guarantee that the addition of midterm evaluations would result in the removal of all end-of-semester evaluations, but it is an idea. As a concluding thought to the discussion, a House Senator said, “[The presenters of the evaluations proposal have] done the research, they’ve done the work, I think we should just let them do it.” 

Related to the topic of end-of-year course feedback, one of the SGA members brought up the lack of a grade appeal process present at Conn and there was a small period of time for commentary on this idea. There was no direct resolution for an SGA decision in these conversations, just information for various students to bring back to relevant committee conversations and to report student opinions back to interested groups. 

After the discussions above (critically considering journalism’s relationship with politics and faculty evaluations), the meeting moved on to weekly reports. These reports typically start with senator reports, then committee reports, officer reports, and finally, presidents’ reports. 

At this meeting, there were no senator reports, but one particularly invested and caring House Senator asked if it was true that House Senators cannot also be Floor Governors or House Fellows. To the Senator’s dismay, they were informed that this is true because the positions are considered to constitute a conflict of interest. 

There were also no committee reports, prompting SGA President Bella Castellanos Palacios to request confirmation from everyone that their committees are actually meetings to perform the work of shared governance at the college. Members responded in the affirmative, but that they simply did not have updates from their various groups. Some committees, as seems to be determined in consistent SGA meetings, are more determined in their work than others.  

For officer reports, the one of most interesting note, was from the Chair of Residential Affairs, Mel Rollins, who reported that there are discussions—but no decisions—about changing the titles for Floor Governors and House Fellows to the more well-known titles of Resident Assistants (RAs) and Community Assistants (CAs). Positions in favor cite the name recognition of these titles and the benefit of that recognition for these students in future job applications. Those opposed value the tradition and uniqueness of Conn’s Floor Governor and House Fellow jobs (this is not to imply or suggest that the jobs themselves would potentially change, just the titles of the positions). This was also not a resolution up for vote, just a discussion for students to amass the opinions of the representatives of the student body and report back to the decision-making bodies of the college. 

After a rather quick and efficient SGA meeting, Friend adjourned the governing body and the students dispersed to be absorbed back into the Thirsty Thursday crowd and the studious late-night library goers. 

I started this column as a way to bring attention to the work of SGA and to inform the student body about the importance of the governing body in the operation of the College. In place of the long rambles I deliver to anyone I can get to listen, I hope this column can inform many more people than I run into in a week. And, truly, I enjoyed writing this piece and hopefully provided you, lovely reader, with more information than you previously knew about the general function and specific actions of SGA on Feb. 15. If you are a student, faculty or staff member, or someone who cares about any of them, I believe it is important for you to understand the critical role of SGA in forming the campus we all experience. Unfortunately (and fortunately), just three days after this meeting, I was elected as Chair of Academic Affairs and will not be able to personally continue writing this column, since I now have a conflict of interest. Here at TCV, we will strive to continue to provide this important campus information to our audience to the best of our ability. If you would like to help us in this endeavor, please attend our pitch meetings or reach out to thecollegevoice@conncoll.edu.