On Thursday, March 28, Macalester College Student Government (MCSG) held their weekly Legislative Body (LB) meeting to discuss chartering new student organizations, vote on proposed rephrasing of the Judicial Council Amendment to MCSG’s constitution and hear updates from committee members and liaisons.
The meeting started with the chartering of four new orgs at Macalester: Caribbeans at Macalester, Hawai’i Club, Ice Skating Club and Virtù Journal.
Caribbeans at Macalester focuses on bringing community to Macalester students who identify as Caribbean, in large part through learning more about Caribbean culture. Through meetings and special events, the group wants to strengthen the Caribbean community and identity at Mac.
Similarly, Hawai’i Club centers on sharing Hawaiian culture with the Macalester community.
“Hawaiʻi Club aims to serve both Macalester students from Hawaiʻi and the general student community at large by exploring the complexities of Hawaiʻi’s unique multicultural landscape and navigating the dynamics of Asian settler-colonialism and US militarism,” the club’s charter stated.
Ice Skating Club hopes to make ice skating more accessible to those who aren’t as familiar with it. The club will be open to all skill levels, and will meet twice a week.
The final club that was looking to be chartered was Virtù Journal, an org looking to provide a new source of academia to the Macalester community. The group explained that Virtù’s initiatives differ from those of the Macalester Street Journal (MSJ), another student academic journal, in that it is centered around the humanities rather than political science and economics.
“In our club we will be starting our papers from scratch, instead of taking submissions [like MSJ],” Virtù Managerial Editor Khant Wai Yan ’25 said. Following the chartering, MCSG President Mariah Loeffler-Kemp ’24 presented a proposed amendment to the MCSG constitution regarding the Judicial Council that she and other LB members had been working on. Loeffler-Kemp explained that the Judicial Council helps ensure fairness within MCSG, handling disciplinary issues when they arise. The rephrased amendment features a change in language from including only three people on the council to at least three.
“It states in our constitution that there’s no wiggle room [for more than three students],” Loeffler-Kemp said. “This year, that’s caused some problems. For example, there was one time where one person had a conflict of interest, and that was really hard to get the other two members to be able to meet because of busy schedules.”
Loeffler-Kemp explained that although this isn’t a significantly large change, there would be a lot of steps to go through in implementing the amendment. Specifically, because it is a part of the MCSG constitution, it would have to be voted on by the student body. Loeffler-Kemp will be hosting a tabling event as part of her office hours, and the question will be added to the ballot for the class representative and liaison position elections.
Next, it was time for liaison check-ins. MCSG decided to do check-ins differently than usual this meeting. Instead of having liaisons take turns in speaking to the LB, each liaison sat at a different table. Whoever wanted to ask them questions about their current projects could visit them at their respective tables.
Among these updates, Athletics and Recreation Liaison Jordan Galloway ’26 updated the LB on the Scot Ball, a watch party for the Women’s NCAA final four basketball game that is coming up. The watch party will include popcorn, pizza, cornhole and more and will be held in the Leonard Center Fieldhouse. The watch party will be happening Friday, April 5 from 8-11 p.m.
Following this, the LB heard committee and Cabinet updates. Cabinet Chair Willow Albano ’26 said that the Cabinet is looking to rearrange the duties for each liaison. Albano explained that Sustainability and Infrastructure would separate, with Sustainability joining with Dining to become Sustainability and Dining, and Residential Life joining with Infrastructure to become Residential Life and Infrastructure. These changes will come into effect next year.
Additionally, Academic Affairs Committee (AAC) Chair Joel Sadofsky ’25 shared multiple updates, first mentioning the faculty meeting that was held last week in which faculty discussed the reinstatement of language to the student handbook that protects the freedom from censorship for student media organizations. Sadofsky also reiterated the email AAC sent to the student body on March 25 regarding student leadership awards. Four awards are given to students, and one to a faculty member who is nominated by the student body. Forms for nominating awardees close on April 9 at 11:59 p.m.
Finally, Sadofsky explained that AAC had voted on temporary changes to build the course reserve program, specifically to fund purchasing extra copies of in-demand texts and additional online resources.
