By Dan Fletcher and Libby NelsonThe Daily Northwestern
ASG distributed $198,309 to student groups during supplemental funding Wednesday night, closing the funding cycle until spring.
The total included $8,200 in addition to the Student Activities Finance Board’s original recommendations. No groups received funding cuts.
Mayfest received $6,000 more for support bands at Dillo Day, its main event. The group also was given the second-highest amount of funding last spring and the highest recommendation from the Student Activities Finance Board last week. Its spring funding total came to $33,850.
Senators voiced almost no opposition to increasing Mayfest’s funding. While SAFB representatives cautioned senators against such a large increase – the Senate pool for adding funding totaled only $10,008 – they also said the organization probably deserved more money.
Wave Productions benefited as well from Wednesday’s additions, receiving an additional $1,500 to bring Michael Fosberg as a fall speaker. The group argued that his one-man show, his story of discovering as an adult that he is half black, would bring something new to campus.
The night’s longest debate centered on College Republicans’ request for an additional $3,500, which would have brought their speaker funding to $5,619.
The organization wanted to bring Bush impersonator John Morgan to campus in the spring and argued that they deserved the funding as the only conservative group on campus.
But College Republicans’ spring speaker, The Wall Street Journal’s John Fund – brought with $6,500 of funding – attracted only about 40 students, said SAFB representative and McCormick senior Kunal Kumar, calling the attendance to funding ratio “atrocious.”
Senators voted down the proposal almost unanimously.
Alianza received $700 for additional airfare for a speaker.
CaribNation was denied $1,000 in additional funding for its spring CaribFest, and senators voted down Dolphin Show’s funding request for its educational outreach program. Peace Project also had its proposal for $60 for magazine kiosks rejected.
At the end of funding, $1,808 in supplemental money remained. It will be transferred to the pool for next spring, said Speaker of the Senate Jonathan Webber, a SESP senior.
Both the College Republicans and Wave debates brought up the issue of SAFB’s funding guidelines. While SAFB emphasized that it could not, and senators should not, fund an organization based on its principles, rules chairman Eric Parker, a Weinberg junior, reminded senators that they could vote any way they wanted.
“I could come up here and say you could choose to act like a bunch of clowns if you want to,” Kumar said in response, drawing laughter. “SAFB has guidelines for a reason.”
New this week were resolutions proposed in response to the security measures recommended last week, including a measure from the student services committee condemning the administration for not consulting students before making their recommendations and calling on it to postpone putting alarms on side doors until student opinion can be gauged.
“These new policies will affect every student living on campus and some living off campus,” said Kendall Drew, the Residential Hall Association president and a McCormick sophomore.
The second measure creates a HereAndNow poll to study student response to the changes. While the resolutions were originally emergency measures and would have been voted on tonight, Senate voted instead to make them regular business and postpone the voting until next week.
Reach Dan Fletcher at [email protected] and Libby Nelson at [email protected].
