Northwestern Associated Student Government Senate finalized a total of $11,052 for funding of all B-status student groups Wednesday.
Of that sum, $390 was granted from the amendment pool, a separate sum of money reserved for extra funding requests. The $390 was allocated to four student groups who requested additional money at the meeting. ASG Student Groups Vice President Lauren Masterson said the Student Groups Committee recommended a total of $10,687 for all B-status student groups.
The groups who received the most amount of money include: Northwestern University Women Filmmakers Alliance receiving $930, Spectrum Theatre Company receiving $750, Purple Crayon Players receiving $670, 64 Squares receiving $670 and Northwestern Ballroom, Latin and Swing Team receiving $490.
Masterson said since few of the B-status groups attended the senate meeting asking for more money, she thinks the allocations to each group are fair.
“If anyone were really upset they would have shown up to Senate,” the Weinberg junior said. SGC group executive Matthew Sachaj said some of the groups asked for substantially more funding than what the SGC recommended. He said the largest discrepancies between requested amount of money and money recommended stemmed from the fact that the requests were “unreasonable” or “restricted from the guidelines.”
“SGC has a particular set of guidelines that lead us in the direction of what we may and may not fund,” the Weinberg sophomore said. “And some of the groups applied for things we could not fund.”
For instance, Masterson said Northwestern University Dance Marathon requested money to purchase new computers because the group thought they may break down, but said the SGC cannot fund something that “might” fail. She added that NU’s chapter of AIESEC, The International Association of Students in Economics and Business, requested money to send some of its members to a conference. SGC could not fund them for that purpose because the conference was not available to all NU students, and one of their guidelines mandates that funding be granted to programming open to the entire student body, Masterson said.
“When it comes to funding programming, we do our best to make sure the event is open to all (of) campus,” Sachaj said. “Our budget comes from everyone’s student activity fee in their tuition. Therefore we have to give back to all students.”
