The ASG Senate on Wednesday forced Women’s Coalition to evaluate their organizational structure and barred former group Director Beki Park from signing any student group financial documents, after an investigation concluded that Park violated university guidelines by signing a $10,000 contract in the summer.

Women’s Co leaders will have to meet with Associated Student Government officers and Campus Activities Office administrators by the end of the quarter to discuss changing the group’s structure, which was described as “non-hierarchical.”

Unlike most student groups, which rank executive board members, Women’s Co has a director and then a variety of different chairs for events and other programming.

Women’s Co Director Laura Millendorf said that although the group wants to work with ASG, changing the executive board structure would not have prevented the infraction from happening.

“Even if our executive board was a perfect hierarchy, that wouldn’t have affected it, because the person who signed it was at the top,” said Millendorf, a Weinberg junior.

Millendorf said the group’s organizational system decreases the amount of time it takes to plan events such as Take Back the Night in April, which the group begins planning in December.

“If you had them all having to answer to one person before they could do anything, we would have to start planning a year in advance,” Millendorf said.

Women’s Co’s punishment stemmed from a July infraction by Park, who violated Student Organization Finance Office regulations when she signed a contract for Women’s Week speaker Susan Estrich without approval from Campus Activities, ASG Financial Vice President Carson Kuo said.

Student Activities Finance Board, which conducted the investigation into the violation, contemplated sending the case to the University Hearing and Appeals System but decided against that plan because of concerns about how it could affect Park’s future, Kuo said.

But Campus Activities or Northwestern still could send Park, a Weinberg senior, to UHAS, Campus Activities Director Paul Wolansky said.

Citing a university policy not to discuss specific incidents, Wolansky declined further comment.

Park was unavailable for comment Wednesday night.

Millendorf said the current executive board found out about the contract in September, when they realized the contract was not in their mailbox.

The group corrected it in less than a day and no money changed hands because of the contract, she said.

“In the end, there was no lasting damage,” said Kuo, an Education senior. “There was that brief time in which the university could have been open to a lot of liability issues.”

Kuo said it was necessary to evaluate the group’s organizational structure because Women’s Co also faced financial misconduct allegations in April 1998, when the group spent about $500 they had not been allocated, to buy Take Back the Night shirts.

Kuo pointed out that there only have been four financial misconduct investigations since that time, including the two involving Women’s Co.

“That says something about an organization,” Kuo said. “What that may be, I’m not sure, but I do think that does warrant a further look.”