Photo Courtesy of Carmen Mickelson
Hope Simpson ’24
Staff Writer
Big changes are coming to the Tranquility Room following Tuesday’s senate meeting. On Friday Oct. 29, the E-Board’s Diversity Equity and Inclusion Officer, Maille Romulus ’23 and Earl Wren ’24 met with Richard Perna, executive director of Auxiliary Services and Aaron Ferguson, senior accessibility coordinator. The Tranquility Room will now be a no-talking zone and students will no longer be allowed to use it as a cut-through anymore. Additionally, the signs identifying the space as noise free will be replaced with much bigger, more noticeable ones. The SGA E-Board, in conjunction with dining hall staff, will look into ways of expanding the room’s single-seating. Senators raised other dining concerns as well. Brisa Hakin ’22, a dining hall employee, said that students have been leaving trash on tables when leaving the dining hall. This adds more work for dining hall staff and makes it hard for students to know if tables are free or not. According to Hakin, it has been harder to find tables in Blanchard Hall recently, as the colder weather has pushed more students to migrate indoors. This issue was also addressed at last week’s senate meeting. Senators were told to include a reminder about the issue in their hall emails, so the persisting issue brought increased concern.
As the month of November has just begun, senators were reminded by the E-Board to keep up with specific deadlines. Ways & Means funding for all student organizations is due Nov. 11 by 5:00 p.m. Senators also brought up events happening for the upcoming weekend.
On Nov. 5, the Jewish Student Union will be hosting a Learners’ Shabbat in the Eliot House. It starts at 5:00 p.m. and all students are welcome. The College’s Plus-Sized Affinity Group will be having its first meeting on Nov. 6 at 2:00 p.m. in Blanchard 218. Subsequent meetings will be held on the first and third Saturday of each month. The Western team is having a home competition from 9:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m. on Nov. 7 at Mount Holyoke’s Equestrian Center.
SGA then opened the floor for students to raise concerns and make announcements. The senator for Pearsons Annex, Piper Hattenbach ’25, mentioned that students have noticed the sounds of leaf blowers and lawn mowers being used at 8:00 a.m. on Friday mornings. Not only is the noise upsetting to some, but Hattenbach pointed out that leaf blowers use a lot of energy while generating CO2 emissions. The SGA E-Board will be getting in touch with administrators regarding the noise, but they expressed that banning leaf blowers would be a more complicated task. The sustainability commission discussed petitioning to remove or lessen leaf blower usage, but there were no further updates on the matter. The sustainability commission will be tabling in Blanchard later this month; on Nov. 17, 18 commission members will be there to answer questions and field concerns from the student body.