Officials next semester will start releasing final exam schedules on the first day of classes, Student Government Association leaders announced at the body’s Monday meeting.
SGA President Ethan Lynne and SGA Vice President Liz Stoddard said officials agreed to post exam dates and times by the first day of classes of each semester going forward after years of SGA advocacy, given GW has historically released the dates roughly five weeks into the semester. Students and SGA members have requested that officials expedite the release of the final exam schedule in recent years, so students can more adequately prepare travel plans and not incur higher ticket prices as they book their travel closer to the end of the semester.
Lynne said he, Stoddard and other SGA leaders like SGA Sen. Sophie Munson (CCAS-U), the chair of the body’s Education Policy Committee, have for years lobbied officials like former Provost Chris Bracey, Interim Provost John Lach and Vice President for Student Affairs and Dean of Students Collette Coleman to convince them to expedite the final exam schedule release.
“This wouldn’t have been possible without the advocacy work of the SGA,” Lynne said. “I started bringing this up in my first meeting with then Provost Bracey in the fall of 2024, then Liz and I continued to bring it up to Provost John Lach and Dean Coleman in every meeting of this year.”
Munson, who sponsored a resolution in January 2025 calling on officials to speed up the exam schedule release, said at a meeting last year an “overwhelming majority” of students who responded to a July 2024 SGA survey about exam schedules indicated that an earlier release would ease travel costs.
Lynne said officials will post the final exam matrix — which assigns exam dates and times based on course meeting schedules but does not specify exam dates for specific classes — by the first day of registration for the next semester. He said officials will post a tentative schedule by the first day of classes, and by the end of the second week of the semester faculty will receive a survey to request physical exam space, with a week to respond.
He said officials will finalize all exam locations and the full schedule by the end of the fourth week of classes.
Senators also unanimously passed four pieces of legislation, including a bill that updates the SGA’s bylaws to allow leaders of student organizations to attend Financial Services and Allocations Committee meetings virtually.
SGA Sen. Cheydon Naleimaile-Evangelista (CCAS-U), the finance committee chair, said the bill only extends the option to attend virtually to members of the public, and members of the committee still must attend in-person “whenever practicable.” Senators passed legislation at a February meeting creating an “open door” policy for finance committee meetings, doing away with the previous system which required members of the public to register and receive approval from the committee’s chair to attend.
“I wrote this bill after I heard some feedback on how the committee’s in-person meetings were not accessible to members of the general public who may not be able to attend in-person but still want to watch or sit in while their organization’s request is being deliberated,” Naleimaile-Evangelista said.
Senators passed another bill at the meeting that creates a new executive secretary of data and analytics in the executive branch, who will administer a semesterly “campus accountability” survey sent to all students, allowing them to provide feedback on SGA policy changes. The bill, which goes into effect immediately, requires the secretary to administer the survey in the last two weeks of each semester.
SGA Sen. Jivan Ramesh (Law-G), the bill’s sponsor, said the survey will keep the Senate accountable to students “in a more ongoing way.” He added that the new executive position will also help coordinate surveys the SGA administers and create a “centralized role” for data management in the body.
Senators also moved into an executive session with Chief of Staff Scott Mory, at his request, for about 45 minutes at the meeting, hearing a five-minute presentation from Mory and then fielding questions from senators. Mory did not disclose the topic of the presentation.
The SGA will hold its next meeting on March 30 at 7 p.m. in the University Student Center Grand Ballroom.
