Emailing the Minutes

At last week’s meeting, the General Assembly had a very thoughtful debate: should we email the minutes from our meetings weekly?

This initiative was prompted by Hamilton College’s practice of sending their minutes and the subsequent community created  when students, faculty, and staff read them and are more engaged with the student government. The argument for sending the minutes here at Bowdoin focused on the worry of overwhelming student inboxes, that representatives would censor what they say to a point where they wouldn’t speak, whether or not we should email the agenda as well, and the concern that no one would actually read them.

Ultimately, it was decided that a PDF form of these minutes would be emailed via the BSG email every Friday, allowing enough time for the General Assembly members to clarify what they meant and our Secretary to pull everything together grammatically. The first round of minutes was sent on Monday morning and were well-received by the campus. Many members of the Assembly have received emails about what they have said, things to bring up at future meetings, etc.

Be sure to stay tuned to your emails on Fridays in the spring semester, as tonight is our last meeting before break, and approach the General Assembly members if you have comments or concerns about something they said!