New leaders, new Barnard?

Well, to be honest, nothing groundbreaking happened at this week’s SGA meeting. The meeting basically confirmed everything previously believed: Barnard loves Asia, GS, SEAS, and complaining about how double swipes don’t already exist. 

This week’s SGA meeting was supposed to be a changing of the guard: old members welcoming new on the eve of the elections results. Of course, no such thing occurred. Because of a miscommunication, BCIT closed down voting Sunday night instead of Monday afternoon. When this mistake was discovered, voting was put back up and extended until Monday at midnight to compensate.
So this meeting was short, and had nothing on the official agenda. But our bold, beautiful Rep Council made up for it with a deluge of announcements:

SGA loves collaboration:

  • SGA and ESC 2019 class councils are joining to host a lawn party in the near future. Together we will revel in our lack of swim test requirement.
  • The Barnard/GS Picnic is happening this Thursday on Lewisohn Lawn. Says SGA VP Campus Life Angela Beam, come to “celebrate our favorite undergraduate colleges in Morningside Heights.” We feel that.

Academic Affairs gets things done:

  • Everybody’s favorite Rep for Academic Affairs announced that Barnard is close to approving three new minors: East Asian Studies, South Asian Studies, and Middle Eastern Studies. If you are really into regional studies but not, like, that interested, this is for you.
  • Hannah also discussed everybody’s frustration with myBarnard, the new system imposed on the students last year for choosing and registering for classes. It looks flashy, and only kind of works. If you’ve encountered any specific problems (say, with using the search bar for anything at all), alert BCIT. They’ll have a look when they’re through inadvertently tampering with the elections.

The swipes strife continues:

  • All year, Rep for Food and Dining Services Miriam Lichtenberg has been in conversation with Aramark, who provides Barnard dining, about allowing students to “double swipe”– use the meal swipes that they’ve already paid for to swipe in themselves and a friend (or a stranger, a family member, a hungry prospie) within a single meal period. Aramark has, somewhat convolutedly, been claiming that this would allow students to use all of their swipes. They say that they are not equipped financially to provide anyone with, say, nineteen meals a week. This does not make sense to anyone. Tentatively, Aramark will begin allowing students to use a certain number of “guest swipes” (very few, 6-2 depending on meal plan) a semester. Says Miriam: “obviously the more the better, so this isn’t exactly what we pushed for.”

Good luck, new Rep Council. You’re going to need it.

Image via Max Pixel