SBA Board Meeting Minutes

September 9, 2003

S301

8PM

 

I.                   Attendance and Approval of Minutes from August 26, 2003: several absences because of conflicting trial court meeting. Minutes approved.

 

II.                Dean Young: Thanked the students for all they did for the school. Things are looking good with the construction: expanded school space, faculty all together now, centralized administration, 9 new classrooms. Will be working on the 2nd floor so that it goes all the way through. There was a suggestion made for a construction party

Entering class keeps getting better. LSAT score up one point, 11,800 applications. Over 5 years applications have almost doubled. Lot of new visiting professors and hope to make a few new appointment to the faculty this year.

Graduation date change. 7 years ago we graduated with the undergrads but then we separated. Dean Young would like student impact on this change & wants to make a decision by the end of September. For advantages and disadvantages of this date change please refer to last meetings minutes. There was much discussion on this issue and the 3L students expressed many concerns since they have already been told a certain date. 2L students are more open to the idea since we have not made any graduation plans yet.

Computers are very slow. It is a result of the move. We are working on getting them all up to speed but long-term plan is to phase them out because of the new laptop requirement.

 

III.             President’s Report

1.      Result of LLM vote:  email vote – reps voted for LLM representation

 

IV.              VP Reports

1.      Day VP

2.      Evening VP: the ELSA President and VP were working on a proposal to abolish ALL Friday classes. Spoke with Dean Trangsrud and it does not look plausible.

 

V.                 Secretary Report

1.      Cabinet members pictures: b/c of high absence today they will take place Sept 23.

2.      Office Hours sign-up: Tuesday 2-6, Wednesday 10-3, Thursday 1-5. Will be in the SBA Office.

3.      Contact Sheet: hard-copy will be distributed at the next SBA meeting.

 

VI.              Treasurer Report

1.      Locker Sales: $12,600 in sales, we want to make a little more so if anyone doesn’t have a locker spread the word.

2.      Office Computer: Word is working

 

VII.           Class Representative Reports

1.      3L Reps

a.       Library Door: why isn’t it open late anymore? Perhaps shortage of staff, our deal wasn’t an unconditional long-term deal (info from Sharmese Hodge).

b.      LLM Resolution (Mike Silver and Chris Herndon): we passed a resolution giving the LLM’s one representative until that representation is Constitutionalized.

2.      2L Reps

a.       Rebecca Carvalho is working on the computer problems.

 

 

VIII.        Committee Reports

1.      ABA

2.      Academic Affairs: we will have email terminals in the Burns Alcove. There is some talk of eliminating journal membership as fulfillment of the writing credit. There are proposals for 14 new courses.

3.      Alumni Relations: there will be more information about the mentor program coming soon. The first event is planned for October 1st.

4.      Budget & Finance

5.      Commencement: we need input on graduation date change. Please email jgerhard@law.gwu.edu.

6.      Community Service: going to clean up the park again this weekend. .

7.      Elections: there will be 5 1L reps and one LLM rep. There was a good turn out at the info session, 45 ppl.

8.      First Year Programs

9.      Graduate Affairs: some contact has been made with the Elliott School and they are interested in doing events. Going to try and contact other grad schools regarding interest in things such as sports competitions.

10.  Interviews

11.  Judiciary

12.  Minority Affairs

13.  Pro Bono Programs: There is a Pro Bono fair on Oct 21. Also more info about the Animal Welfare project can be found on the portal. An alternative spring break; going to FL to do pro bono work – will raise money so that it wouldn’t be too expensive to go.  

14.  Program Board: This week Big Hunt, next week City-Wide at Lulu’s. Thirsty Thursdays will resume shortly we are just having some problems completing the mountains of paperwork required by the undergrads.

15.  Public Relations

16.  Student Services

 

IX.              Old Business

1.      Constitutional Convention: we are getting people together and there seems to be quite an interest.

2.      Journals

3.      GPA/Class rank issue: new curve affects everyone; not only entering students.

4.      Printing

5.      CDO Committee – vote: passes. We should use this to refine CDO services, alternative programs to FIP.

 

X.                 New Business

 

XI.              Kudos

 

XII.           Adjournment