Starting promptly at 7:15 pm, Parliamentarian Timothy Friend ‘25 led the Student Government Association (SGA) General Assembly through the SGA Oath. In the following roll call, Friend determined the General Assembly one member short of quorum, news that those gathered responded to with groans of disappointment. The General Assembly would not be able to vote on the resolutions presented at the previous meeting.
Nevertheless, Friend began the open forum with the Office of Advancement. Interim Vice President for Advancement Susan Daniels ‘01 and Assistant Director of Annual Giving Cody Riggers presented on the work of Advancement and then responded to the General Assembly during an open questions period.
They defined “advancing the College” as work done to fundraise, build, and maintain relationships that help the office meet financial goals. Much of this work is done by soliciting financial gifts to the College. Numerically, they informed the Assembly that past and present gifts make up ~23% of the annual operating budget—which is pretty much what it sounds like, it’s the money to be spent yearly on programs and functions of the College. Student fees paid to the College net of financial aid account for 71.2% of the annual operating budget and the rest is sourced elsewhere (for example, from the endowment).
On the gifts, Daniels said, “If we didn’t raise that money every single year—it’s to the tune of about $7 million every single year—everyone would have to cut their budgets by about 7%.”
At about this point in their presentation, an absent member of the General Assembly showed up and the Assembly met quorum.
There are three main types of gifts: annual, capital, and endowment. Annual gifts support the College’s operating budget with a financial contribution in a year. They can be directed to any one of more than 200 options presented to potential donors. One of these is the “area of greatest need,” which Daniels and Riggers explained as a way to have the most immediate and broad impact on campus. Capital gifts are physical gifts, such as the College’s new(ish) sign by the main entrance. Endowment gifts are financial contributions to endowment funds, which are pots of money that are invested and earn interest, which is then what is spent on campus. Endowment gifts increase the College’s assets and are sustained indefinitely.
Gifts can also be restricted or unrestricted, and the Office of Advancement works to honor the donor’s intent. Restricted gifts are directed toward a specific program or particular use. Unrestricted gifts can be allocated to any area of campus.
They concluded the presentation with an expressed desire to increase trust between students and Advancement and to facilitate a greater culture of generosity on campus that encourages students to give back to the school.
Friend then transitioned to facilitate the questions and feedback portion of the open forum.
President Bella Castellanos Palacios ‘25 started this off by asking how Advancement determines the “area of greatest need.” Daniels responded, explaining that Advancement works to support all aspects of campus and the area of greatest need gifts are used to backfill areas where necessary to ensure all groups on campus get their full operating budget.
Chair of Equity and Inclusion Kassandra Olmedo ‘25 asked about the functions in place to engage specifically with BIPOC alumni. Riggers replied that there is a specific fundraising campaign for alumni to sponsor stoles for any student affiliated with the Office of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion. Daniels added that there are also annual fundraising goals for DEI, but federal law dictates that Advancement must be careful to not show preference between specific DEI groups.
Kazi Stanton-Thomas ‘26 asked how Advancement works to influence people to donate to groups on campus that have need but that the donor may not specifically have a connection with. To this, Daniels explained that Advancement actually wants people to self-select the recipient of their gifts and tries to not influence them toward any one aspect of campus over another.
In response to a question related to criticism of to the school’s use of funds to renovate Crozier-Williams before residence halls, bathrooms, and various physical areas of greater need—in student opinion—Daniels explained that the money allocated to Cro renovations is part of a restricted fund and cannot be redistributed to another area of campus.
Unfortunately, at a point during the open forum, two members of the General Assembly left, and as Friend ended the open forum period, the Assembly was forced to skip voting on last week’s minutes and old resolutions (the ones from April 18). A number of General Assembly members and non-SGA students present expressed a good deal of indignation at the situation and people began making personal calls to houses without or with absent House Senators to get enough people present to vote on what those in the room considered important matters for the College.
In the meantime, Friend permitted the presentation of new resolutions that would be voted on at the May 2 meeting.
The first new resolution—titled “One for One within One Year Tree Policy”—was presented by Paloma Doyle ‘26 and Caelon Shugrue ‘26. They discussed the summer renovation plans that will result in the removal of 35 trees from campus without any current plans to replace them. Trees are tied to the identity of Connecticut College as an arboretum campus, and this is reflected in our motto, which reads, “Like a tree planted by the rivers of water (that bringeth forth its fruit in its season).”
As Shugrue said, “Trees are beautiful. Trees make you proud to be a camel!”
Doyle and Shugrue’s presentation touched on the tangible and intangible benefits provided by trees on campus: carbon sequestration, temperature control, community building, and impact on mental health. Doyle also explained to the General Assembly that New London has the lowest tree equity score in all of Connecticut and removing 35 trees is a big deal to the town.
Doyle said, “maintaining community with New London means recognizing that our trees are important to New Londoners too.”
They concluded their presentation with a read through of the resolution, which would have the SGA call “on Connecticut College to establish a One for One Within One Year tree policy, so as to fulfill the College’s stated goals of environmental responsibility and sustainability, sustain community-centered wellbeing, benefit our New London community, and cultivate a stewardship of our Alma Mater that will render her greater, worthier, and more beautiful.”
This presentation and resolution was met with applause from the Assembly before the floor was opened to questions.
Dean of Students Victor Arcelus, standing in for SGA Advisor and Associate Dean for Campus Life Geoff Norbert, asked whether this policy would specify the type of tree planted to replace a removed one and whether it applies to invasive species on campus. Doyle—who works for the Connecticut College Arboretum—wrote the policy to specifically apply to the accession collection, which does not include invasive species. Therefore, invasive trees removed from campus would not need to be replaced with the passage of this resolution. Accession is a term used to describe the addition of items or artifacts in a collection and is used by the Arboretum to describe trees added to the campus landscape.
After a few more questions, Doyle and Shugrue concluded their presentation. During it, fortunately and excitingly, the personal calls made to people to show up as replacements for those absent or to represent houses without representatives turned out to be fruitful and the General Assembly once again had quorum. In order to keep the flow of the meeting straight, Friend allowed presentations of new resolutions to continue and for voting to occur after.
Following Doyle and Shugrue, I personally presented three resolutions and then co-presented a fourth with Chair of Residential Affairs Mel Rollins ‘25.
My first resolution was for an off-campus representative, a Town Senator, to fulfill the responsibilities of House Senators for students living in non-College affiliated housing. The election for this position would occur at the same time as House Senator elections and only students living off-campus would be eligible to run and vote for their representative. Importantly, the final clause states that this position will only exist “when the number of students living off-campus is equal to or greater than the on-campus residence with the smallest number of residents that qualifies as a constituency with a House Senator representative.”
There were not many questions for this resolution and it seemed well-received by the General Assembly.
The second resolution I presented had to do with the College’s preferred name policies. Currently, the College only permits students to indicate preferred first names. From personal experience and principles, I know there are situations where students may want to distance themselves from their legal last names. For this reason, I drafted the resolution to call on the College to change its policies and permit preferred last names with the same restrictions as currently apply to preferred first names. This resolution also adds a clause that would have the College seek individual name preferences for public communications about the student, which may, depending on personal circumstances, be different from the name the student would like to use in classes and around campus in the current preferred name change form on CamelWeb.
The last resolution I presented independently was one that I affectionately titled “Resolution Resolution.” The Resolution Resolution establishes a new responsibility for the SGA Parliamentarian to keep records and track progress toward fulfilling resolutions passed by the General Assembly. Currently, there is no structured procedure or method for the SGA to follow up on progress made toward fulfilling a resolution, and therefore, there is a notable lack of the SGA to hold itself or the College accountable. This resolution would have each resolution approved by the General Assembly “assigned” to a member of the SGA Executive Board who would then be responsible for ensuring the resolution is carried out to completion—whatever that may look like for a particular policy. The Parliamentarian would be responsible for ensuring each Executive Board member is following up on their respective resolutions.
Rollins joined me to co-present a resolution for three changes to the SGA Bylaws.
We proposed additional eligibility requirements for students running for a position on the SGA Executive Board. Currently, students may not be on Disciplinary Probation Level 2 or have a GPA below 2.50. We proposed that students may not have an academic dishonesty violation within the last year or more than one in their cumulative time at the College, they may not have any violations related to Threats, Misuse of Funds, or Weapons within a year of the election, and they may not have any Title IX violations.
In addition to proposing changes to eligibility requirements, we added the responsibility of House Senator elections to the SGA Executive Board rather than House Fellows, since it is not part of the House Fellow responsibility in their contracts.
Finally, we proposed that closed door SGA meetings should occur only in special circumstances and that the decision to have these should be the result of a simple majority vote of the General Assembly. It has been an unspoken and understood rule that the SGA can have closed door meetings, but it was previously possible for this to be a decision of just the Executive Board. The aim of this proposed change is to have the power of this decision spread to the whole of the General Assembly.
Each of these above resolutions were set to be voted on during the May 2 General Assembly meeting.
Now meeting quorum, the General Assembly was able to vote on minutes and old resolutions. All four of Stanton-Thomas’s previous resolutions—a DEI day on campus, increased transparent communication during incidents of bias, enhanced relationship between the SGA and Student Advisory Boards, and a task force to find equitable solutions to gender expansive housing—passed without debate.
In senator reports, Arcelus announced that he put in a work order to have the tunnels painted and a process for murals in the future. He hopes that they will be open by the fall semester.
In committee reports, the Facilities and Land Management Committee voted in favor of funding the rest of the Sprout Garden kitchen proposal, which the SGA had approved $30,000 for earlier in the semester.
During officer reports, Chair of Sustainability Grace Webb ‘27 announced that EV charging stations will charge people a small fee for using the stations. This will go into effect July 1. These stations will now incur a fee of $0.30/kWh while a vehicle is charging. One hour after the charging is complete, the cost will rise to $0.07/minute ($4.20/hour) that the car remains plugged in.
And with that, the meeting was adjourned.
