On Thursday, Oct. 30, Macalester College Student Government (MCSG) held its weekly Legislative Body (LB) meeting in the DeWitt Wallace Library’s Harmon Room.
The meeting began with a land acknowledgement before quickly moving into consideration of B0050: A Bill to Raise the Student Activity Fee, which raises the student activity fee to $315 from $215 per year. The bill passed by a vote of 18-0. The LB then considered B0049: A Bill to Switch to a Semesterly Budget Model, which passed unanimously.
President Suzanne Rivera then came before the LB to answer questions from MCSG and the assembled public. She began by fielding a question on the status of the college’s Brighter fundraising campaign.
According to Rivera, the campaign is proceeding as expected and exceeding its fundraising goal of $28 million by more than $4 million.
The major focus of the campaign is to finance the new residence hall and welcome center currently under construction on the northwest corner of Grand Avenue and Macalester Street, but Rivera notes that borrowing money for the project will be required due to the nature of many of the campaign’s donations.
“Some of the gifts people give us in the campaign are [that] they tell us they’re leaving Macalester in their will,” Rivera said. “It’s money that we can count toward the campaign, but it’s not money that’s actually in our hands until a person passes away.”
Rivera then pivoted to a question on the status of the construction of the new dorm, saying that the City of St. Paul has worked effectively with the college to coordinate closures and that the building will prioritize sustainability.
“We’re putting geothermal wells in the ground so that it can be the most ecologically responsible building we have on campus,” Rivera said.
“There’s also going to be solar panels on the ceiling and different terraced rain gardens at levels to collect rainwater.”
The Q&A session then turned to a question on the college’s negotiations with the Macalester Undergraduate Workers Union-United Auto Workers (MUWU-UAW). Rivera remarked that the college has been in conversation with the union and that the college follows relevant labor laws on breaks and communicating changes to working conditions.
“Starting in late summer and early fall, there have been several conversations between the college and MUWU[-UAW],” Rivera said. “So one of them was the issue about breaks and Bon App[étit] … [and] what I’ve learned is that if you work a shift that’s three hours or fewer, technically, there is no obligation under the law to give breaks. So even though many of the Bon App[étit] shifts are three hours or less, Bon Appétit has proposed a 15 minute paid break before the start or following the end of a three hour shift.”
Sophomore Class Representative Xavier Honer ’28, who is also a member of the MUWU-UAW bargaining committee, however, asserted that breaks are required for certain Bon Appétit workers and that the college does not hold communications with MUWU-UAW to the proper standard.
“[Rivera] was talking about Cafe Mac shifts and emphasizing how a lot of them are three hours long. Those are the breakfast and lunch shifts. The dinner shifts, to my knowledge, are four hours long,” Honer said after the meeting. “She [also] referenced communication about changes with MUWU[-UAW] as being a new ‘habit’ that the administration has undertaken [but] it’s actually a legal requirement that a union be given the opportunity to negotiate any new changes to employment.”
Rivera then turned to a question about the Institutional Research Office and the college’s peer group comparisons on tuition and fees.
“When we do that work [to set tuition], we look at what the other institutions in our peer 40 group have done, not to collude with them to set prices, but just to see where we fall in the list when setting our fees,” Rivera said. “Our comprehensive fee [is] 98 percent and 96.7 percent of the mean and median for our 40 school comparison group.”
Rivera also offered critiques of the current peer group that the college uses for institutional comparisons, specifically that the 28-year-old list includes schools which now have endowments that place them out of Macalester’s range. She also, however, notes the value that the group’s economic diversity offers for comparison.
“What you hope with a 40 [college] comparison group [is] that there’s enough variability that you learn something about the places you aspire to be like, and you feel satisfied that you have more resources than the places that have lower endowments or lower amounts to spend.”
Rivera then fielded a question on the college’s response to changing federal higher education and immigration policies, remarking that the college lists resources for affected students online and intends to stand firm against unlawful federal interference.
“Macalester has not been overreacting to orders by behaving in an anticipatory way to make changes on the campus, and that is a deliberate choice to not engage in anticipatory obedience to rules that have not even been deemed legal yet,” Rivera said. “We are working with outside counsel to advise us, especially around things related to immigration and visas, and how people who don’t have citizenship or legal authorization to be in the country can be better supported.”
Rivera also noted that the college is taking more concrete steps to protect the college community, particularly those who are undocumented or have student visas.
“You also have probably noticed that we’ve taken some steps — for example, labeling the buildings [as] private property and keeping as many buildings as possible on card swipe access,” Rivera said. “That’s a deliberate choice; because if uninvited law enforcement were to show up on campus, they would not be able to enter any of the buildings and … they’re to be directed to Public Safety, who have been trained on making sure that these people are actually legitimate.”
Rivera then offered specific details of where to send unauthorized law enforcement.
“Community members are directed to contact Public Safety at 651-696- 6555, who will verify any warrants that agents possess and direct them to Associate Provost & Chief Data Officer Bethany Miller and Director of Human Resources Deb Ekeren to assess what actions the warrants require.”
More broadly, Macalester is working with college coalitions and advocacy groups to speak out against targeting international students across the country.
“One of the steps we’re taking is to pull together the presidents and public safety directors from all of the Twin Cities colleges to talk about mutual aid and how we could respond if any of our campuses were targeted to mobilize resources,” Rivera said.
Switching to concerns about campus safety and gun violence at schools, Rivera commented on her personal connection to the Aug. 27 mass shooting at Annunciation Church in Minneapolis and killing of Minnesota House Speaker Melissa Hortman and her husband Mark Hortman. She emphasized the importance of community in prevention and response to such events.
“We all have been impacted emotionally by both the shooting at the Annunciation Elementary School, and for me personally, the murders of Melissa and Mark Hortman in June … I’m still deeply stunned by that [as] I knew Melissa [Hortman] personally and experienced that as a loss, but it also really brought home for me how much care we all have to take of each other,” Rivera said. “That means thinking about security and safety on the campus, but also us all keeping our eyes open about anything that seems like it might be of concern and reaching out when we’re worried that something could be a threat to the safety or security of anyone on this campus.”
Returning again to institutional finances, Rivera commented on the challenges that the upcoming post 2008 demographic cliff caused by low birth rates during the Great Recession will pose for the college and admitted that cuts to expenses may be necessary during the crunch.
“Macalester will have to compete more effectively for those [fewer incoming] students, but also we need to be more careful with our resources to manage them better,” Rivera said. “That means cutting down on unnecessary resources that don’t serve our strategic objectives well, but also looking for ways to increase revenue.”
Rivera mentioned potential ideas for increasing the college’s revenue, including leasing dorms to more summer camps and hosting weddings in Weyerhaeuser Memorial Chapel.
“We’re going into a period of what we’re calling a soft frost, which means when a staff position is made vacant by a departure, rather than filling it immediately, we’re going to let it sit open for 60 days before we post it [on job boards],” Rivera said.
Rivera however cautions against wide-ranging cuts, and notes that the student experience will continue to be prioritized.
“You can’t cut your way to excellence,” Rivera said.
Rivera then closed the Q&A session by taking a question on how the college intends to tackle maintaining student safety in study away programming amidst international conflict, advising those with concerns to speak with the Center for Study Away and recognize that alternative programs likely exist.
“If there were a country that met your language objective, but you felt unsafe going there, chances are good that our study away office could help you find another place to go where you could still meet your language requirement,” Rivera said.
The LB then moved into discussing the initiative to form a committee on the peacemaking grant set up between the Board of Trustees and MCSG with other student groups to distribute $44,500 in matched funds for violent conflict relief following Mac for Palestine’s divestment push.
“This committee will be responsible for fundraising for the peacemaking grant,” MCSG President Willow Albano ’26 said. “And [also] planning events and collaborating with outside organizations to make sure that we are on top of raising money for this.”
The motion to create the Peacemaking Grant Fundraising Ad Hoc Committee passed by a vote of 17-0 with one abstention.
Financial Affairs Committee (FAC) Chair David Christenfeld ’27 then introduced members of MacShare and their request of $4,000 to provide food vouchers for students affected by the Nov. 1 pause to Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) funding caused by the ongoing government shutdown. The motion to provide MacShare with $4,000 passed by a vote of 17-0 with one abstention.
The LB then turned to hearing updates from issue-based liaisons. Accessibility and Wellness Liaison Emma Rohrs ’26 mentioned her discussion of the college’s biennial review of drug and alcohol related targets for improvement with the Alcohol and Other Drugs Advisory Committee.
“We need to review our goals and see where we are,” Rohrs said. “Major ones that we’re going to focus on are things involved with clarifying policy, especially when it comes to faculty and off-campus events, because there’s not really clear policy, and everyone has a different idea of what that policy actually is.”
Rohrs also shared that representatives of Minnesota’s Office of Cannabis Management will meet with faculty and staff on Jan. 7 and speak with students at a later date.
Institutional Equity Liaison Pardis Roham ’28 shared that she will work on updating online accessibility resources with Vice President for Institutional Equity Alina Wong, and that she will work to engage the student body with the Institutional Equity office.
Dining and Sustainability Liaison Jj Cuneo ’28 detailed that Bon Appetit is currently working through labelling changes for allergens and clarifying where cross contamination may occur. Cuneo also shared that they will host a trivia event on sustainability and dining issues on Dec. 3 from 7-9 p.m. in The Loch.
Beginning with Academic Affairs Committee (AAC) Chair Samantha Schafer ’26, committee representatives then shared updates. Schafer discussed AAC’s work towards re-establishing pre-engineering programs.
“We used to have a three-plus-two program with Wash U for engineering, where you could go directly from Macalester to Wash U, finish your degree at Wash U and graduate with a B.S. [and master’s] in engineering from Wash U [in a] three plus two[-year format],” Schafer said. “We were talking about, potentially very much in the future, bringing those back.”
Schafer also mentioned that AAC will once again host a ‘pied by professors’ event for MCSG’s upcoming Legislation Week.
Junior Class Representative Jonah Daniels ’27 shared that the Student Organizations Committee had approved the charter of the Pacific Student Alliance and that the committee would continue its work to update its code on democracy in student organizations and increasing leniency on overlapping purposes for identity-based groups.
Junior Class Representative Ines Visa ’27 rounded out the meeting by detailing that the FAC had processed seven requests for funding. Of these requests, two were tabled pending further information, three were rejected and two were accepted for a total of $450.
