Hi Wellesley,

The last two months have been rather busy, with a lot of progress made on the Senate floor. During October, we had a two-part Senate series in which we explored the mental health resources available to students. To begin, we learned of the student-led resources—more specifically, Active Minds and the Mental Health Educators (MHEs). Given the number of first year Senators, this was a great opportunity for them to directly learn about the health educators on campus, as well as the mental health resources that are available by our peers. Following this Senate, we learned of the resources offered by the Stone Center as Robin Cook-Nobles Ed.D., Director of Counseling Services, and Jan Park Ed.D., Assistant Director of Group and Outreach Activities both joined us. The discussion that followed afterwards demonstrated the true power of not only Senate, but student government at Wellesley. Hearing the solutions and strategies Senators came up with to increase awareness of these resources and improve student-Stone Center relations was one of my favorite moments as CGP. Senators are interested in pursuing action items that were inspired by these discussions. Our discussion of mental health does not stop with these two Senates but will be continuing next semester as well.

This past week, we focused on further cultivating and enhancing school spirit at Senate. The presidents of the Student Athlete Advisory Committee (SAAC), Wellesley College Dancers, Freestyle and ascenDance joined us at Senate to share how they would like to see support from the community. InDuring our small group discussions, Senators thought of ways in which CG could help centralize information in regards to the different matches and games as well as the dance shows.

On the Cabinet end of things, we have made great strides and progress in the goals that we set out to accomplish. One of these goals was to begin the elections process earlier than it has been in the past. Elections Committee, which is constitutionally comprised of Cabinet members who are not running for office, two Senators and three student representatives appointed through the Student Organizations and Appointments Committee (SOAC), will be formed by the end of the semester so that the Committee has more time to plan elections during the Spring semester.

Speaking of elections, we are currently in a cycle of Special Elections to elect a new Secretary-Treasurer. Voting begins at 8:00am on Friday, November 4th and concludes at 8:00pm. I encourage all those who have questions to reach out to our two great Candidates and learn about each of their platforms. Finally, CGPC met for the first time last week and began planning our first town hall. Please look out for more details as we finalize our plansthe details. As always, please reach out if you have any questions regarding Cabinet or College Government.

Best,
Zainab Younus, ’17
College Government President