On Thursday, Feb. 13, Macalester College Student Government (MCSG) met in the Janet Wallace Fine Arts Center for their weekly meeting.
Felicia Winfrey ’25 marked the agenda’s start by giving updates from the two advisory committees she sits on: the Provost’s Student Advisory Committee and the Student Affairs Advisory Committee. Winfrey shared that students should feel free to reach out to her with anything they would like her to discuss in her monthly meetings with Provost Lisa Anderson-Levy. She also expressed an interest in meeting with Vice President for Student Affairs Kathryn Kay Coquemont more frequently, since the Student Affairs Advisory Committee has only met once this academic year (in a meeting that took place last semester).
Academic Affairs Committee Chair (AAC) Chair Tristan Niedzielski ’25 then introduced a bill to update the Graduate Schools Admissions Tests (GSAT) Grant Program. The program initially provided 25 students with $100 grants each semester; the bill proposed reducing the number of grants to 15 students per semester while raising each grant to $175. Niedzielski explained that the 25 slots were never completely filled, thus “we were having that money go into rollover, and it wasn’t actually being effectively used.” They added that students reached out to them claiming the $100 grant could not cover enough of the admissions tests fees.
Niedziekski expressed optimism regarding the changes, saying “this still gives us room to increase communication and increase engagement around this, so that hopefully we are filling those 15 costs.”
The bill passed with 24 members voting in favor and one in opposition.
Spring Student Organizations Committee (SOC) Chair Alec Chen ’26 introduced the chartering of Racquetball Club. Co-president of the club, Owen King ’27, explained the general rules and premise of racquetball to the Legislative Body (LB), justifying that getting the org chartered would provide them with sufficient funds to purchase equipment. The LB chartered Racquetball Club with 24 votes in favor.
Niedzielski then introduced the resolution calling for “Institutional Divestment Related to the Genocide of Palestinians by Israel”. The resolution asks Macalester College to divest from businesses listed in Mac for Palestine’s financial divestment proposal, publicly commit to not make future investments in those businesses and increase financial transparency by releasing information about investments from listed companies. 18 voted in favor, 4 against and 1 abstaining, passing the resolution.
In the wake of another special election, Sophomore Class Representative AnLian Krishnamurthy ’27 then introduced a bill to amend the elections process. His bill called to keep the main three election cycles (executive board, sophomore, junior and senior class representatives and first-year class representatives), but to eliminate special elections. In their place, if a position is empty after an election, the bill would permit the president to appoint a student to fill that role with two-thirds approval by the Legislative Body (LB). However, the Elections Procedure Committee (EPC) would be able to vote to hold a special election if half of the EPC approves.
Members of the LB discussed the bill with conflicting views on what is the best course of action for special elections:
“I understand the fears of voter fatigue,” Senior Class Representative Cooper Glick ’25 said. “[But] sometimes there will be a contested election, and I think that it should be up to who wants to run and who the students think should be in that role … encouraging democracy as much as possible.”
MCSG President Joel Sadofsky ’25 proposed a middle ground where MCSG can only hold a special election if there is a whole semester left when a vacancy opens. MCSG would then need to decide a cutoff time for when it is too late in the semester for the president to appoint interim positions.
Junior Class Representative Marina Moberg ’26 emphasized the importance of special elections for generating interest in MCSG for new students.
“It is a chance for new people to run, and a chance where it’s maybe not as scary as the beginning of the semester,” Moberg said. “And new people spark interest in MCSG because they were interested in this special election.”
The LB decided to continue discussion about Krishnamurthy’s proposal by submitting their perspectives in a Google form until their next meeting.
Senior Class Representative Tor Olsson ’25 then introduced a resolution to alter the Board of Trustees (BoT) liaison guidelines to protect the positions of the Student Liaison and The Mac Weekly in relation to the BoT. Olsson explained that as the BoT’s bylaws stand, the Chair of the Board and the President could remove the Student Liaison without agreement of any student representative. The resolution requests that the BoT amend its bylaws to include position descriptions of the Student Liaison and The Mac Weekly’s, publish summaries (with classified information removed) after meetings on the website and establish monthly meetings between the Student Liaison and the Chair of the BoT.
Finally, Vice President Ryan Connor ’25 introduced a resolution to reconsider the Spring 2025 graduation venue. On Jan. 31, an email was sent to the class of 2025 announcing commencement details, including that the ceremony will be held in the Leonard Center (LC) Fieldhouse, as opposed to the football stadium where it has been held in previous years. Connor explained that he met with Program Board (PB) Chair Sophia Vaz ’25 and Liz Kelly-Doan ’25 to discuss the resolution. Kelly-Doan created a petition expressing disappointment in the decision and the lack of student input and received more than 100 student signatures. However, when she sent the petition to the Commencement Planning Committee, Kelly-Doan received no response.
“With this resolution, we’re asking them to reconsider the decision, which is a little bit of a long shot, but we’re still going to push it forward because they need to know the student body as a whole is pretty upset about this,” Connor said.
The resolution also calls for a larger student involvement in the Commencement Planning Committee: asking for two seniors and one junior to be appointed “in conjunction with MCSG”, as stated in the resolution.
Niedzielski motioned to pass the resolution, which led to members of the LB looking through the bylaws to ensure a vote was allowed. 25 members voted in favor, passing the resolution unanimously. Connor added that the next steps for this resolution will be meeting with the Center for Disability Resources about accessibility in the LC Fieldhouse and opening the petition to be signed by any class year.
The meeting concluded with cabinet updates, committee updates and announcements. Of these updates, Residential Life & Dining Liaison Galjer Yangwaue ’27 announced that Bon Appetit is designing a more controlled menu system where chefs submit recipes to a system to ensure ingredients and allergens are more clearly labeled. Yangwaue is also working with Bon Appetit to provide more specials, flavored waffle batter and all-day waffles.
