Aneesa Arshad held one of the most – if not the most – powerful student positions on campus.
As the former Associated Student Government financial vice president, the SESP senior oversaw a board that doled out about $1.2 million to student groups last spring.
Last Wednesday, her reign came to an end.
“I’ve learned a lot,” she said to the Senate as the outgoing financial vice president. “It’s sad to go, but change is good.”
Yet questions loom as to what change will come in Arshad’s place.
The change starts with her successor, Weinberg junior Seva Rodnyansky who is making sure the Student Activities Finance Board will be ready for spring funding. Right now, Rodnyansky is working on his transition to the position. Despite having been part of the board since Fall Quarter during his freshman year, he said “there’s always more to learn because it’s a constantly evolving process.”
And if ASG President Jon Webber has his way, the funding process could change more than anyone on the board would expect.
Weeks before B-status group funding took place Feb. 13, the Weinberg senior was already thinking of ways to change spring funding for A-status groups.
The board oversees funding for A-status groups, or on-campus groups that are typically more established and require more funding. Its recommendations are the result of a 60-hour auditing and interviewing process. During the process and throughout the year, the board follows a strict protocol of monthly audits, weekly petitions and numerous applications. Some see this process as too rigid, but board members said this is crucial for student group accountability. The board is responsible for the $44 student activities fee every student pays each quarter.
“At the end of the day, this is students’ money,” Arshad said. “And if there weren’t so many rules and procedures, I think people would feel nervous that every cent isn’t being held accountable.”
Webber has yet to announce the funding changes, pending further discussion with Rodnyansky. Webber has talked to more than 20 A-status groups’ leaders and compiled pages upon pages of notes in a Word document. There are emerging themes from these complaints and suggestions that could potentially alter – or even encourage a major overhaul of – the process, the protocol and the institution, he said.
With an arm of ASG that is potentially more powerful than the body itself, compiled of six senators and six non-senators, there is a sense of division and friction. The greatest stems from who has the final say at the end of funding.
Senators, who act as a check to the board by debating the funding recommendations, have an amendment pool of about $20,000 during spring funding that they can allocate to the student groups. But most of the time, senators pass almost all of the recommendations.
“This is one of the most important things that Senate does,” Arshad said. “And there’s a little bit of tension because (funding) is something that’s supposed to be ultimately up to the senators, but because we put so much time and have so much knowledge (having audited these groups), we actually – I think a lot of people would agree – have more power in the process.”
Even within the board, with members who might be friends, debates are heated.
“At committee, we go at each other 10 times more than people go at each other in Senate,” Arshad said. “We tear each other apart.”
But there are no hard feelings – such debate is crucial to the board’s effectiveness, Arshad said.
“If we’re not debating, and we don’t really disagree, then we’re not doing our job,” she said.
In particular, relations between the board and student groups most obviously become strained during the funding process because “there’s never enough money to go around,” Arshad said.
Unhappy groups can mobilize and bring a number of members to the Senate meeting to debate funding. Arshad said outsiders’ presence sometimes signals student group disapproval of the board.
As the newest financial vice president, Rodnyansky is the face of the board. Even though he has his own set of goals to bring about change, he, like Arshad did, will face difficulties – not from outsiders, but from the position itself. It’s a difficulty that Webber, in his quest to change the board, will have to deal with as well.
“Each financial vice president has goals … But it’s just so overwhelming the things you have to do day-to-day, ” Arshad said. “There are things I wanted to do that I couldn’t.”
