On Thursday, Sept. 28, Macalester College Student Government (MCSG) convened in the Harmon Room of the DeWitt Wallace Library to discuss committee updates, elect a Speaker of the Legislative Body (LB) and plan for the upcoming “Legislaytion Week”.
President Mariah Loeffler-Kemp ’24 led an icebreaker activity before moving to committee updates.
Giving an update for the Communications & Engagement Committee (CEC), CEC Chair Mathilda Barr ’25 reported that the upcoming ‘Kagin’ event, was officially named the ‘Hallowagin’ and announced on social media. The Hallowagin will commence on Friday, Oct. 20 in the Alexander Hill ballroom of Kagin Commons.
Eliora Hansonbrook ’25, chair of the Financial Affairs Committee (FAC) shared the committee is working through 20 requests for funds from various student organizations and finalizing a list of at-large committee members.
Academic Affairs Committee (AAC) Chair Tristan Niedzielski ’25 shared that the committee is hoping to gather more information about the potential textbook billing contract with Barnes & Noble. They plan to meet with Vice President for Administration and Finance Patricia Langer and another with Vice President for Student Affairs Kathryn Kay Coquemont in order to learn more.
Following a request from Loeffler-Kemp to explain the details of this contract to new representatives, Niedzielski clarified information about the contract to the LB.
“Mac is about to enter into a contract with Barnes & Noble in their ‘all-inclusive’ — which is just a marketing term — model for textbooks,” Niedzielski explained. “Which would mean that all students would pay a flat-rate fee to get all the textbooks provided on the first day through Barnes & Noble. It will not matter what classes you were in. So if you were in classes that didn’t have any textbooks, you would still be paying this flat rate fee.”
Niedzielski also added that they have not received any communication about whether this contract has already been signed or not, and how much the flat-rate fee would cost for students.
“This is a major, major shift in what textbooks will look like at Mac,” Niedzielski said.
Cabinet Chair Willow Albano ’26 shared an update for the Cabinet. Albano reported they met with the CEC to discuss promoting the Community Chest Fund and maintaining communication with issue-specific liaisons.
Next, MCSG members decided who would become this year’s LB Speaker. The nominees were sophomore representative Luke Evans ’26 and senior representative Reagan Kimzey ’24. The selection process included a quick speech from both representatives and a vote from the LB members present.
In his speech, Evans talked about his qualifications for the role and motivation for running.
“I helped co-found the Macalester Street Journal Club and for the past year, I’ve been running the meetings, making an agenda and making sure that at those meetings we stick to the agenda and make sure that all of the things get done,” Evans said. “I hope that somewhere down the line, I’ll have the chance to work in government or to work in foreign law. And this would be an interesting and very nice place to start.”
Kimzey also focused on her involvement at Macalester outside of MCSG, while emphasizing how her seniority would better help in this important, sometimes difficult role.
“I’m president and captain of the women’s rugby team, I play hockey, I sing and manage the choir, so I’m pretty involved on campus,” Kimzey said. “And here as a senior, I’m pretty familiar with how bureaucracy at Mac works and how to navigate these things.”
In the end, Kimzey was voted to be the LB Speaker for the coming year.
Following the election, Barr introduced CEC’s upcoming initiative: “Legislaytion Week”. This “spirit week,” as Barr described it, will begin on Monday, Oct. 16 and end with the Hallowagin dance on Friday, Oct. 20. With the support of the CEC, each MCSG committee will host a different event, aiming to foster student engagement with MCSG.
“We understand that this week, the week of Oct. 20, is midterms week for a lot of people,” Barr said. “So the purpose of these events is [that] they’re quick, they’re easy [and] people will come and go and learn something about MCSG [and] get something beneficial in the process.”
Barr then explained that each committee will have 20 minutes to brainstorm plans for an event. Each committee has been appointed a different representative who serves on the CEC to help with planning their event — Aditya Choubal ’27 brainstormed with FAC; Sylvia Coyle ’25 discussed with the Cabinet; Kimzey planned with SOC and Barr strategized with AAC.
The meeting concluded with one announcement: Loeffler-Kemp reminded representatives that the LB would be voting on the omnibus bill during their meeting on Thursday, Oct. 5. She encouraged members to finish proposing edits to the election code and bylaws by the end of the day on Tuesday, Oct. 3.
