Last year, money from the mandatory Student Activities Fee went toward events such as Hillel’s and For Members Only’s Black-Jewish Freedom Seder dinner and a Muslim-cultural Students Association lecture covering topics such as Islamic perspectives on stem cell research.

But under current ASG guidelines, that funding cannot go toward an Easter celebration hosted by Cru., or a presentation about Catholic perspectives on abortion hosted by Sheil Catholic Center.

Hillel and McSA are recognized as cultural groups and are funded with student money through the Associated Student Government, while strictly religious groups such as Sheil and Cru. are not recognized by ASG. To address this and other unclear policies related to on-campus religious groups, ASG President Jonathan Webber announced last week the creation of an ad hoc committee to recommend a uniform way of defining religious and cultural groups. This consistency, Webber hopes, will prevent any one group from receiving special treatment or exclusion.

Hillel and McSA leaders said they are satisfied with their designation as cultural groups and host only cultural events.

“We center our programming around the fact that Islam is a culture,” said McSA President and Medill junior Hibah Yousuf. “We’re not motivated by any doctrine, and we don’t base decisions on Islamic law.”

“We do have an executive board, and although it’s a fine line to some extent, we have a pretty clear understanding of what is a religious get-together,” said Hillel President Danielle Gershon, a SESP senior.

Hillel, formerly known as Hillel Cultural Life, received just more than $24,000 from last year’s funding cycle. McSA received about $34,300. On the other hand, Cru. does not plan to seek ASG funding.

“We’re functioning OK without it,” said Brad Hutter, a Weinberg senior in Cru. “If we had extra help, that would be great, but we wouldn’t seek it as a cultural group. We’re not, we’re a group that defines itself as a statement of faith.”

However, ASG recognition comes with other perks, such as the ability to post directly onto NULink’s calendar. Unrecognized groups still have to post through ASG’s public relations chair. This prompted Sheil Catholic Center to seek probationary T-status recognition last spring. The center applied through one of its student organizations and received recognition as a cultural group, Webber said.

“It seemed remarkably unfair … to not allow religious groups to post, and to not let students interested in a Sheil event to see it on NULink,” said Mary Deeley, a pastoral associate at Sheil.

Sheil hopes to seek B-status, and in turn, A-status, which would allow the group to receive funding, said John Dunbar III, chairman of Sheil’s steering council. As a T-status group, Sheil plans to begin posting educational and cultural events on NULink. Currently there are not strict guidelines on what can and cannot be posted.

During the calendar’s pilot phase, Hillel briefly posted Shabbat services, but they stopped once they realized the calendar was only for ASG-recognized groups, unlike its predecessor Plan-It-Purple, Gershon said.

ASG is aware of these puzzling guidelines and hopes the ad hoc committee will help answer questions, Webber said.

Religion is a cultural phenomenon, and distilling the different aspects is no easy task, said Richard Kieckhefer, chairman of the Department of Religion.

“There are two factors I would want to ask first,” he said. “Is an activity, sponsored by one of these groups, meeting some religious obligation? If so, it would seem to be a religious group and not a cultural one. And what are the criteria for membership? If they allow friends as members to the group, then it would seem to me that there is a good claim that they are cultural rather than religious.”

Some other schools, such as Washington University in St. Louis and the University of Chicago, treat religious groups the same as any other student groups in their student governments, according to executives from their student governments.

At Northwestern, the chaplain decides which religious groups the university will recognize, said University Chaplain Tim Stevens. It has been this way throughout his 22-year career at NU, and the university is not likely to give up that responsibility to ASG, he said.

“These decisions might be better made by someone with some expertise and understanding with what groups and religions are about,” he said.

Most student religious groups are also part of larger organizations with rabbis, pastors and other non-student staff members. Stevens said ASG will have to figure out how to work with this system if they recognize religious groups.

Communication senior Becca Donaldson, who will head the ASG ad hoc committee, said it will work objectively, interviewing campus groups, university historians, the chaplain, as well as other schools before making recommendations to the Senate.

“Mostly, we want to start a dialogue about it so that the Senate and student body talk about it,” Donaldson said.

While the committee will make recommendations on ASG’s relationship with religious and cultural groups and perhaps a presentation on funding, “the actual decisions will be up to the Senate and SAFB,” she said.

Reach Steph Yiu at [email protected].