Last week’s Macalester College Student Government (MCSG) meeting was over before it began. Not enough elected members showed up to meet a quorum, so MCSG could not hold an official meeting.
“I know it’s really preaching to the choir because you guys are here, but we really do need a strong commitment to being at our meetings and on time so that this doesn’t happen,” MCSG Vice President Emma Kopplin ’24 said after the failed quorum was announced. “There are things that we need to do, and in order to do them, we need a quorum.”
In an email to The Mac Weekly, MCSG Chief of Staff Ryan Connor ’25 explained the low attendance.
“Due to the unavoidable commitments of many LB [Legislative Body] members which unfortunately happened to all fall on the same day, we were unable to call this meeting to order … [The October 12] meeting was not indicative of MCSG’s commitment to representing the student body and our entire organization is committed to ensuring that this doesn’t happen again,” Connor said.
MCSG bylaws dictate that two-thirds of elected members need to be present in order to hold a Legislative Body meeting. Without a quorum, the assembled members could not vote, but they still held an unofficial (internal) meeting.
The Mac Weekly cannot record internal meetings, but Connor described the contents of the meeting in his email to The Mac Weekly: elected members split up into self-determined working groups to discuss initiatives that MCSG could push for this year. This brainstorming session was the one previously planned agenda item that the internal meeting was able to cover. The initiatives discussed included residential life and dining, the campus community and mental health.
The rest of the previously planned agenda, which the members were not able to follow, would have included short committee updates, cabinet updates and an overview of “Legislaytion” Week. The rest of the meeting was supposed to consist of reviewing the transition document, which is a list of projects started by past students.
MCSG planned to cover the missed agenda items at their meeting on Thursday, Oct. 19.
