As the Associated Student Government convened Wednesday, it included the presidents or treasurers from 39 B-status groups who were slated to receive funds from the body. Executive Vice President Vikram Karandikar, in charge of the Executive Committee that provided the recommendations for funding that would be debated, gave a brief summation of the situation.
“There were close to $30,000 to allocate this year,” the McCormick junior said. “There was good debate and I hope that everybody’s happy.”
The latter statement turned out to be prescient, as the groups represented proposed no changes to their allotments from the Executive Committee, and the entire funding procedure concluded within 15 minutes, after which the student group leaders exited en masse.
Karandikar said things moved smoothly because groups likely had already toned back their requests to what was reasonable.
“They make very conscious decisions not to be greedy and to ask for things that they need,” he said.
He also gave credit to the amount of contact he and his committee had maintained with the student groups before and after making recommendations, noting the time he spent discussing funding with the group leaders.
“I talked to them and got things cleared away,” he said. “Maybe it was a guidelines thing or just that we couldn’t provide it, any sort of unhappy group got heard.”
After the funding vote, the Senate debated for two hours the recommendation of the Student Activities Finance Board to censure A&O Productions for “general misconduct,” after it failed to have its contract with Demetri Martin signed until the day after the comedian’s event had sold out. This violates the SAFB’s code of conduct, which states that all contracts must be signed prior to publicity.
SAFB decided to push for a censure and request that the board be included in any A&O e-mails regarding contracts because if SAFB had been informed of the difficulties getting the contract signed, it could have issued a waiver for the rules, said Financial Vice President Malavika Srinivasan.
“Our concern at the end of the day was the lack of communication,” the SESP junior said. “Nobody was informed.”
Afterwards, A&O chairwoman Syd Cohen said special circumstances around the event warranted leniency, especially given that A&O had been in constant contact with the Center for Student Involvement Director, Helen Wood, who had approved the group’s behavior.
“The reason we couldn’t get his signature was his show had just premiered and he was busy,” the Weinberg and Music senior said. “We literally had to get the contract to him the second that he deboarded an airplane.”
After much back and forth, the Senate agreed to issue a condemnation of the body, which does not carry the legal effect of a censure, along with binding it to forward its communication on all contractual matters to SAFB.
Despite the compromise, some individuals were annoyed with the tone and length of the debate.
“I’m disgusted, simply disgusted,” said ASG President Neal Sales-Griffin, a SESP senior.
The Senate also unanimously approved a new constitutional amendment Wednesday that requires the president and vice president to run together as a ticket, as well as changing the names of the executive board’s positions.
The ticket system was necessary to ensure the vice president and the president worked well together, explained its sponsor, Parliamentarian Will Upton.
“The president and vice president are almost twins,” the Weinberg senior said. “Having these two people at odds with each other would be disastrous for ASG.”
He described the remaining changes as “mostly name changes and the line of succession,” which were modified only in successive amendments to make every executive board position except the vice president a director, rather than a chairman, as originally written.
No further discussion was offered before the bill passed, likely owing to the fatigue of two and a half hours of prior debate which also clearly influenced an exchange between Upton and Sales-Griffin.
“The power and control stuff, (Sales-Griffin) put that into Bill,” Upton said, describing the way Sales-Griffin had helped Vice President Bill Pulte with his job.
“Bad wording!” Sales-Griffin replied from the back of the room.
