Bwogger Peyton Ayers covered SGA’s second meeting! Read all about it! 

SGA, Barnard’s wonderful Student Government Association, met for the second time this Monday night to 8:00 PM to discuss a few important matters for the beginning of the new school year. The meeting kicked off with each SGA committee member going around and introducing themselves to all the new faces in the room. After that, things got started.

The co-founder and chair of the Food Pantry at Columbia, a free campus-wide food pantry started in 2o17, came to spread the news about the pantry and express their goals for its third active year.  The Food Pantry has its biggest year yet ahead, with their third silent auction coming up in a few weeks, featuring auction items like an Apple Mac Mini, a wine tasting event and cooking classes at Faculty House (maybe PrezBo will be there), and Rangers tickets. The co-founder wanted to explain that next semester the pantry is opening a second location on the medical center campus and that they need as much publicizing from SGA as possible to spread the word across both the Morningside and medical campuses. To find out more data and info on the Food Pantry at Columbia, check out their website. The Food Pantry at Columbia is located on the fifth floor of Lerner.

After talking with the Food Pantry has wrapped up, the Barnard deans came to visit SGA in order to better explain their role within the college. First, the Dean of the College, Leslie Grinage, explained her role as the chief student affairs officer of the college; her goals is to help students’ “out of classroom” experience in order to help them thrive within the classroom. Grinage also noted that Furman, Beyond Barnard, the Executive Director of Equity, and the Registrar’s Office all directly report to the Dean of the College with issues and concerns — so be aware of that when booking appointments with any of those groups. The class deans then discussed their individual roles for each year, explaining that they provide a more directly academic approach to students in each year and act as an academic consultant, mentor, and confidante.

Lastly, the deans highlighted the creation of the new Office of Family and Parental Engagement. The office works as a resource where parents of Barnard students can reach out with questions and concerns, specifically first-generation and low-income families. So, if your parents are looking to get more involved at Barnard, have questions, or would like to seek advice on paying for college and other topics, they should get in touch with the new office.

barnard gates via Wikipedia