On Thursday, Nov. 20, Macalester College Student Government (MCSG) held its weekly Legislative Body (LB) meeting in the Weyerhaeuser Boardroom to hear updates about the Faculty Advisory Council, the Educational Policy and Governance Committee (EPAG) and Athletics.
The meeting began with an update from Dean of the Faculty and Professor of Mathematics, Statistics, and Computer Science Tom Halverson on his work with the student body and college administration.
“It’s a new role with President [Suzanne] Rivera for a member of the faculty [to] sit on the senior leadership team,” Halverson said. “I’m on the faculty-facing side of the academic programs, the provost’s line. I oversee faculty arriving, getting mentored and hired [and] I work with department chairs closely.”
Halverson then fielded a question on his relationship with the faculty, the administration and the student body. He emphasized that communicating the needs of all three parties is key to his role.
“One of the biggest things I do is keep bringing the faculty perspective into places where I’m the only faculty member,” Halverson said. “I also sit on important faculty committees where we’re keeping [up] communication between administration, the trustees [and] the faculty.”
“I work closely with [Vice President for Student Affairs] Kathryn [Kay Coquemont], so I am communicating students’ perspectives to the faculty [and] to the senior administration,” Halverson said.
When asked specifically about his work with MCSG, Halverson detailed that the most collaboration occurs the Educational Policy and Governance Committee and with its student liaisons. He also signaled his willingness to continue speaking to the LB when faculty matters arose.
Switching to his role within the Faculty Advisory Council, Halverson gave an overview of the council’s role and its agenda for the semester.
“The committee doesn’t have a charge other than to talk to each other and open lines of communication for the administration to hear what the faculty are thinking about,” Halverson said. “Every week each committee gives a report, so we talk about the things that are going on with the curriculum and the things that are going on in governance.”
“We’ve created a new committee this year for the non-tenure-track faculty, and … there’s a lot of conversation about how to support faculty who aren’t in tenure-track lines,” Halverson said. “[Non-tenuretrack faculty] teach about 40 percent of their classes here. There’s some professors that I’m sure you know and love, and we’re trying to better support that group and open lines of communication.”
Halverson also noted the council’s discussion of proposed curriculum changes, allocations of tenure track positions, faculty H1-B visas and Macalester’s financial situation.
Speaking on the project he found most impactful, he highlighted the hiring process for new faculty joining the Macalester community.
“We hire a really diverse faculty and … we hire about eight new tenure track professors a year,” Halverson said. “I’m really proud of the people who come and the training they’re getting. When I started, a lot of the faculty looked a lot like me, and we’re [now] getting a much more diverse faculty.”
Expanding on the hiring process, Halverson emphasized the importance of student participation in faculty hiring decisions. He explained that two students sit on members of each tenure-track search committee and are typically asked to speak first during meetings.
“The first thing we want to hear is what the student experience is,” Halverson said. “When [candidates] come and meet with me in my office, I always ask them about what it’s been like for that bunch of students [to meet them]. It’s really interesting to see … how they respond to the student involvement.”
Halverson rounded out his presentation by responding to concerns over academic freedom in the present political climate. “We’ve had some challenges already and I’m really, really proud [that] our Board [of Trustees] is backing us,” Halverson said. “We’re not changing who we are or what we’re doing or what we’re asking [of] faculty.”
“Macalester is mission and value driven, so we can keep saying these have been our values forever, and this is what we believe in,” Halverson continued. “It’s who we are.”
Associate Vice President for Student Affairs & Athletics Director Donnie Brooks then came before the LB to present on the state of Macalester’s athletic programs and facilities.
“We’re kicking ass,” Brooks said. “But when it comes to rugby, ultimate frisbee [and] all of [our sports], go and cheer and support your peers. It’s great to see so many teams having success.”
“Other areas that are engaged in the athletic department or that we oversee are our PE classes,” Brooks continued. “For those of you who don’t spend a lot of time in the Leonard Center (LC), particularly as you get into your junior and senior years, take an activity course. They’re a lot of fun. They’re great instructors, [and] it’s a good break for the day.”
Brooks then emphasized the community-building elements of exercising in the LC, including the importance of breaking the social barrier to exercise while Mac’s athletic teams are sharing the space.
“If you see a team in a rack, and you see the rack next to a team open, I want you to step into that rack,” Brooks said. “I want you to show them your best. And there’s this respect that everybody here is in the process of learning something, and there’s likely someone who’s going to clap you on, and go give you advice and be proud of you because you’re doing something hard.”
Switching to concerns over LC hour cuts, Brooks remarked that budgetary concerns played a significant role in the decision to reduce the LC’s open hours.
“What we dealt with was a budget cut of about 10 percent and so we did a couple things,” Brooks said. “We looked at the hours that fitness centers are available, generally at colleges in our area, schools that we compete against.”
“This community wasn’t normally rolling out and coming into the fitness center at 11 [p.m. and] cranking out a quick workout. It was unsustainable for us financially,” Brooks continued. Brooks also noted that the LC is exploring additional winter hours, although budgetary restrictions will likely require fundraising to provide them.
Sophomore Class Representative Ava Annunziato ’28 questioned Brooks on this year’s priorities for student affairs. Brooks responded that among his top priorities are student relationships and involvement in all parts of campus life.
“I do think that at athletic events, other things, everybody should feel a part of this [college],” Brooks said. “I want y’all to feel a lot of school spirit around the institution that you have. Mac used to be a really rough place to go to school [and] we often talk about how hard things are. We don’t talk enough about how great this place is, how much fun we’re having, and how much y’all are winning in all areas of your lives.”
Fielding a question on trauma-informed practice and Title IX training, Brooks remarked that widespread and continued training is necessary for the wellbeing of the campus community.
“In Athletics, we do several trainings each year,” Brooks said. “For those of you who are either on the team or work with folks in Athletics, you know [our staff] are pretty visible, and we’re around all the time, and so to have those folks trained in mental health [and] first aid is really important.”
Brooks then offered clarification that the cuts to LC hours are not directly affecting student work-study, but rather the availability of what hours students could opt to work.
“Last spring, students were notified that the changes in hours were happening, and there were still hours that they could sign up for,” Brooks said. “We have very few students within the athletic department who even fulfilled their full [hour] requirement, and when they did fulfill their full allotment of hours, if they needed to ask for more, we could [give them more hours].”
The LB then moved into nominating a chair of the Peacemaking Grant Fundraising Ad Hoc Committee. Student Organizations Committee (SOC) Chair Liv Peterson ’27 was elected to lead the committee by a vote of 21-0 with one abstention.
“I hope we can continue to raise money to donate to conflict zones,” Peterson said. “We had a few different organizations that we donated to last year, and so [we’re] figuring out if we want to continue donating to those.”
“It seems as though Mac for Palestine has a little bit of a difficulty; when they’re doing showings of movies or videos, they have a hard time finding and reserving spaces,” Peterson continued. “Since we’re considered a student organization as a part of MCSG, I want us to be able to use our organizational status to reserve just to make the overall functioning of the Mac for Palestine fundraising process easier.”
Issue-based liaisons then provided updates to the LB. Athletics and Recreation Liaison Ash Granda Bondurant ’27 noted his work in bringing Brooks before the LB and his collaborative work with Pride Athletics at Mac (PAAM).
“[PAAM] have got their pride basketball game that they really want to start hosting,” Granda-Bondurant said. “They’re looking into how they’re going to fund that right now, and the potential with merch and fundraising and how they’re going to allocate that money.”
Dining and Sustainability Liaison Jj Cuneo ’28 mentioned their efforts regarding the cooking of meat in Cafe Mac, specifically detailing a statement by General Manager of Macalester’s branch of Bon Appétit Amy Tomes.
“Bon Appétit has a standard procedure that all chefs do, which is called line checking [that occurs] during each meal period at each station,” Cuneo said. “They have to check with a calibrated thermometer … and they log the time that is spent cooking those meats in a binder and temp of the biggest part of the meat.”
“I also looked through the binders of the loggings with [Tomes] and everything did actually look really good,” Cuneo continued. “The reason it also sometimes looks like those meats may be undercooked is because they buy a specific type of chicken that has more myoglobin in it, which makes it look darker and sometimes makes it seem like it may be undercooked meat.”
Cabinet Chair Ainsley Meyer ’26 provided an update on behalf of International Student Liaison Lyra Salihu ’27, mentioning that Salihu had spoken with Dean of Students Javier Gutierrez about summer funding for international student housing and that International Student Programs had released a questionnaire for international students.
Beginning committee updates, Sophomore Class Representative Xavier Honer ’28 remarked that the SOC continued work to revise its code and that SOC may host a student organization town hall at a later date.
Communications and Engagement Committee (CEC) Chair Sammi Shelton ’29 noted that the committee would be preparing publicity blitzes for the upcoming spring special elections. Financial Affairs Committee (FAC) Chair David Christenfeld ’27 explained that FAC had approved two requests for roughly $400 and rejected one request for $2,600.
“I wanted to encourage people to tell board leaders to hold more events and request money from the FAC,” Christenfeld said. “We’re seeing less requests coming in, but we really want to encourage people to keep submitting requests.”
Meyer rounded out the meeting by mentioning that the cabinet had approved a $500 Community Chest fund request for a trivia event in the library.
