February Student Council Progress Report

Hey IMSA,

Student Council is proud to present our second installment of project updates. The following sections shed light on what work Student Council is currently doing, and hopefully, you can find a project that you believe will improve an aspect of your life at IMSA. Each section has a project name, project members, purpose, progress, and future plans. If you have any questions, feel free to ask any Student Council member.

Sincerely,
Kiersten Lofton

Project Name: Course Evaluation Guide
Project Leader & Members: Srivinay Tummarakota, Ray Shang
Purpose: To help students make well-informed course selections by creating an annual guide comprising of student advice and statistics relating to course engagement, difficulty, hours of homework per week, and hours of studying per test.
Progress: The Course Evaluation Guide project is complete and can be accessed here! A reflection meeting was held to discuss further improvements that can be made to next year’s guide.
Future Plans: None

Project Name: Teacher Profiles
Project Leader & Members: Surya Cannon, Kiersten Lofton
Purpose: To help students identify the teachers that can help them the best by creating profiles of each teacher containing information about teachers’ hobbies, advice, and experiences.
Progress: Two weeks worth of teacher profiles have been released. You can view them here. 
Future Plans: StudCo members will continue to interview teachers until all teacher profiles have been completed. More teacher profiles will be released within the next weeks.

Project Name: New Teacher Surveys
Project Leader & Members: Kiersten Lofton, Rebecca Xun, Gloria Huang
Purpose: To analyze current methods of giving feedback to new teachers, and looking for ways to improve the process of new teachers transitioning to IMSA
Progress: Student Council members have presented to the Curriculum and Assessment Leaders (CALs) and are currently waiting on feedback to the program.
Future Plans: After receiving CAL feedback, Student Council will consider implementing surveys during 4th quarter.

Project Name: Athletes Missing Classes
Project Leader & Members: Sophie Pribus, Darius Hong
Purpose: To help student athletes missing classes with academics through the creation of a notes website.
Progress: The team has decided to create an online database of notes from various classes, so that student athletes, and students in general, may easily refer to information they may have missed without having to inconveniently ask other students. These notes have been compiled by peer tutors, but the website has been built to accept submissions from all students.
Future Plans: The website will be released after review and approval from faculty.

Project Name: Flow Forward
Project Leader & Members: Rebecca Xun, Surya Cannon, Diego Alanis
Purpose: To provide the IMSA student body free menstruation products.
Progress: The facilities staff has agreed to provide menstrual projects free of charge in all of the all-gender and female bathrooms on campus.
Future Plans: Project is complete, any possible feedback will be taken into consideration to make further improvements.

Project Name: Service Learning Reform
Project Leader & Members: Gloria Huang, Srivinay Tummarakota
Purpose: To redesign the questions on the service learning form based on student opinions and also move the service learning form to an electronic platform
Progress: Alex Johnson, head of service learning, said that she is working on moving the Service Learning Form to an electronic platform known as “Helper-Helper.” She is currently working on securing funding for the application. Student Council has also created a revised service learning form with modifications to the reflection questions. The revised form will be evaluated more thoroughly once the service learning form is moved to the electronic platform.
Future Plans: Once funding is secured happens, StudCo members can meet with Ms. Johnson to discuss and potentially implement revisions to the form itself.

Project Name: Sodexo Snack Bar
Project Leader & Members: Mark Lou, Harrison Carcione
Purpose: To have a snack bar with various snack foods that would be available during hours when Sodexo does not operate
Progress: StudCo members met with Glenn Yehling, Sodexo Executive Chef, to discuss the possibility of having a snack bar.
Future Plans: Logistical issues about the snack bar still need to be addressed. Some of these include the amount of money that would be generated from a snack bar and the types of foods that the snack bar would have.

Project Name: Faculty Information about Mental Health Leave
Project Leader & Members: Srivinay Tummarakota, Radeesha Jayewickreme
Purpose: To learn about the information teachers receive about students with mental health conditions, and see if avenues of communication can be improved
Progress: StudCo members have talked to various students to learn more about what students would want the communication avenues to be. StudCo members have also met with Dr. Bob to discuss the project further.
Future Plans: Members will meet with the CACs to learn more about the communication between teachers and students who are placed on mental health leave.

Project Name: Sophomore Navigation Module Revision
Project Leader & Members: Gloria Huang
Purpose: To analyze sophomore navigation modules, and possibly revise modules with a focus on academic support and resources on campus.
Progress: The Academic Support module was revised from being a tour showing IMSA resources (writing center, ITMC, etc.) to being a simulation where sophomores would go through the process of asking for help from the resources at IMSA. The module was completed, and is now undergoing revisions for next year.
Future Plans: A StudCo representative will meet with the counselors to discuss the revisions to the module.

Project Name: RC 1 on 1s
Project Leader & Members: Vinay Tummarakota and Connor Elmore
Purpose: To help nurture strong relationships and establish a sense of trust between students and the residential counselors in their assigned hall.
Progress: A project proposal has been created and project leaders have done L&L (listening & learning) with several students within the student body to get feedback.
Future Plans: Members plan on meeting with Ms. Berger to further discuss this project.