To begin the Macalester College Student Government (MCSG) meeting on Thursday, Oct. 10, President Joel Sadofsky ’25 introduced Paul Overvoorde, professor of biology at Macalester and associate provost. As associate provost, Overvoorde serves as the co-chair of Macalester’s Strategic Plan Implementation Committee, a committee among several implementation groups whose purpose is to “advance elements of the Imagine, Macalester strategic plan,” according to the college’s website.
Overvoorde expressed his appreciation for MCSG’s work before introducing Macalester’s strategic plan to the Legislative Body (LB) members.
“A strategic plan is something with an eight-to-ten-year horizon,” Overvoorde said. “It’s a plan that gets created, and then the changes that end up happening are things that are meant to change long-term for the institution.”
In preparation for their meeting, MCSG members wrote a list of questions for Overvoorde, which he used to frame his presentation on the strategic plan. Overvoorde began his update on the plan by responding to a question regarding student engagement. He emphasized the more than 2,500 lines of student input on the plan, as well as more specific student-faculty conversations surrounding plans for a new space for the Cultural House (C-House) after it was announced that the current house would be demolished during the summer of 2025.
Overvoorde transitioned to updates about Macalester’s curricular structure under the strategic plan. He highlighted the experimental faculty-staff co-taught first-year courses (FYCs) this year seeking student input. These courses are meant to introduce students to introductory concepts in the liberal arts.
Overvoorde then briefly discussed how student-faculty focus groups strive to recognize gaps in Macalester’s curriculum structure and graduation requirements.
“One of the things that I’m hoping to walk away from here with is making sure that each of you in the room understands that if you have a question, suggestion, ideas of ways to move from those of you in the room to others on campus, I’d be really happy to discuss that and figure out a way to try to move some of that forward,” Overvoorde said.
Continuing on the topic of Macalester’s curriculum, Overvoorde explained the role of Macalester’s Strategic Planning and Analysis (SPA) committee in response to a question about the findings of a recent SPA report on optimizing the schedule of the academic week.
Following this report, Macalester’s senior leadership team came up with four things they wanted to discuss with the Educational Policy and Governance (EPAG) Committee, which guides the provost on the institution’s educational objectives.
One of these four things was a pilot program for two-hour class slots on Mondays and Wednesdays that attempts to, in the words of Overvoorde, address different “pedagogical approaches … and the hope or desire to try to allow for classes to engage more with the Twin Cities.”
Overvoorde also discussed his estimates that for the last ten years, 60 percent of faculty have been new hires, stressing faculty turnover as a point of focus for the strategic plan.
“Every year we bring in a new cohort,” Overvoorde said. “They arrive with different approaches and training in terms of pedagogy as well as their own experiences. They tend to be closer, obviously, in age, to those in the room.
Overvoorde’s update to MCSG about the strategic plan concluded with Dr. Kathryn Kay Coquemont, vice president for student affairs at Macalester, discussing the details of the new 250-bed residence hall to be constructed on campus in the C-House’s current location. The construction of the residence hall is poised to break ground in the summer of 2025 and open for students in 2027.
“What we are hoping to do is be able to satisfy the desired need of upper-class students, especially as rents continue to go up,” Coquemont said. “We want you all to have affordable and safe housing.”
Coquemont confirmed that the administration would not add any new housing requirements for upper-division students with the addition of the new residence hall.
Next on the MCSG agenda was an update from Student Liaison to Macalester’s Board of Trustees (BoT) Gabe Karsh ’25 on the Board’s Sept. 27 meeting. Karsh discussed key agenda items from the meeting, highlighting two High Winds Fund votes.
Macalester’s High Winds Fund was established in 1956 to “improve the beauty, serenity, and security of the area surrounding the campus of Macalester College,” according to the College’s website. What was initially a financial initiative to secure property values during post-war suburban sprawl has now become a more general fund for investment in development around Macalester.
The first High Winds Fund approval was a multi-million dollar purchase of property in the Macalester-Groveland area to be managed by CoPer Properties. While Karsh provided limited information regarding the property’s specific location, Karsh mentioned that it was located in the “business district” of the surrounding area of Macalester.
“These are apparently properties that Macalester has been looking at for a very, very, long time and just recently became available,” Karsh said.
The second High Winds Fund approval was an investment in a hotel near Allianz Field on University Ave. in St. Paul. According to Karsh, the reason behind this investment is the lack of hotels near campus.
Karsh concluded their update by commenting on the current state of the BoT’s discussion regarding Mac for Palestine’s divestment proposal.
“Obviously, divestment was a big topic of conversation with the Board,” Karsh said. “I think the Board is taking this very seriously and considering deeply what to do about this. But as I’m sure you all have seen in the Mac Daily, they have not yet set a date. I don’t know that there are plans to set a date, and there’s more still on this sort of vague ‘maybe by the end of the semester there will be a vote’ situation.”
Academic Affairs Committee (AAC) Chair Tristan Niedzielski ’25 then asked Karsh whether or not the Board had a discussion about the impacts of the approved High Winds Fund projects on gentrification in the surrounding area.
“No, there was not,” responded Karsh.
The meeting moved to hear about and vote on the C-House’s “big” Community Chest Fund request, as LB Speaker Liv Peterson ’27 described it.
The Community Chest Fund is a broad fund, intended to support initiatives that contribute to the Mac community but aren’t led by orgs or sports. Each year $10,000 is added to the fund. This year’s fund total also includes a $6,700 rollover from last year.
The C-House made this request for $5,500 to compensate artist Leon Wang at $110 an hour for an art exhibition and workshop series.
“We’re talking about generally just making a more sense of belonging for students, especially students of marginalized identities,” Infrastructure and Sustainability Liaison Yamalí Figueroa ’27 said of the project’s goals.
After the C-House is torn down, the exhibition would find a permanent home in Kagin.
“We also really believe that it’s in line with the intention of the fund … we think it is a perfect opportunity to fund this kind of event that is supporting minority students and an art exhibition that is open to everyone,” Cabinet Chair Philomena Shuffelton-Sobe ’26 told the LB, adding that more than $10,000 would still remain in the fund.
Representatives from the C-House fielded questions, explaining that the $110 per hour rate was set by Wang, and agreed upon by the organizers as fair. The money would compensate 50 hours of work, around nine of which would be during three open workshops held for the Mac community. The $5,500 would also cover supplies for the workshops and installation.
The proposal passed, with 21 votes in favor, zero against and four abstaining.
The LB then transitioned to voting on chartering PreMed Club, which intends to support pre-med students at Mac in a way they find the college doesn’t:
“We would just love to reach out to the wider pre-med community and bring us together so people actually know each other,” club representative Isam Hussaini ’26 said. “Having that community would be really nice, and [serve] as a resource to them to help their journey towards medical school.”
They intend to offer more support in the medical school application process, especially for first-gen students by bringing speakers to campus to discuss admissions and careers in medicine and connecting Mac students to tours of the University of Minnesota’s medical school.
The club was chartered, with 26 votes in favor and one abstaining.
Sadosfky moved to push voting on updates to the Election Code to the next meeting, as the presentations by Overvoorde and the C-House’s request had run over their allocated times.
Residential Life and Dining Liaison Galjer Yangwaue ’27 updated the LB on the recent meeting with the Macalester Dining Advisory Committee (MDAC), which class representatives Marina Moberg ’26 and David Christenfeld ’27 joined.
Eagle-eyed diners may have noticed the waffle maker has already made its return to Cafe Mac, and the panini press is poised to follow, as well as more late-night dining options.
“Right now I’m working on getting our beloved chicken tenders back, so hopefully that will happen very soon,” Yangwaue said.
Athletics and Recreation Liaison Jordan Galloway ’26 updated the LB on his work to make identity-based lifting groups permanent.
As the meeting pressed against its 1 p.m. end time, remaining committee updates were asked to be added to the agenda. The meeting was informally adjourned, and similarly informally un-adjourned for a final announcement to the LB from Niedzielski about last Monday’s pieing event:
“AAC will have Pied by Professors the Monday of Legi-SLAY-tion week. … Please fill out [the Google Sheet] with your name and professors who you think will be comfortable with [pieing you].”
